different between pliant vs soft

English

Etymology

From Middle English pliaunt, from Old French ploiant, present participle of ploiier (“to fold”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pla??nt/
• Rhymes: -a??nt

Adjective

pliant (comparative more pliant, superlative most pliant)

1. Capable of plying or bending; readily yielding to force or pressure without breaking
   • 1917, The National Geographic Magazine April 1917, The Warblers of North America

     Whether in its northern or southern home, the black-throated blue warbler builds its nest of bark, roots, and other pliant material, loose and rather bulky, in a variety of saplings, bushes, and weeds, but always a few inches or a few feet from the ground.

   Synonyms: flexible, pliable, lithe, limber, plastic

2. (figuratively) Easily influenced; tractable.
   • 1594, Christopher Marlowe, Edward II, London: William Jones,^[1]

     I must haue wanton Poets, pleasant wits,

     Musitians, that with touching of a string

     May draw the pliant king which way I please:

   • 1839, William Gilmore Simms, “The Brooklet” in Southern Passages and Pictures, New York: George Adlard, p. 2,^[2]

     Yet there was pleasant sadness that became

     Meetly the gentle heart and pliant sense,

     In that same idlesse—gazing on that brook

   • 1988, A. J. Langguth, Patriots,

     [The king] had a pliant prime minister and a general who was telling him what he wanted to hear.

Derived terms

• pliantness

Related terms

Translations

References

Anagrams

• -platin, Taplin, plaint, platin

French

Verb

pliant

1. present participle of plier

Adjective

pliant (feminine singular pliante, masculine plural pliants, feminine plural pliantes)

1. pliant

   Sa mère a acheté un vélo pliant. - His mother bought a folding bicycle.

Derived terms

• chaise pliante
• lit pliant

Further reading

• “pliant” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• pilant, plaint

Romanian

Etymology

From French pliant.

Adjective

pliant m or n (feminine singular pliant?, masculine plural plian?i, feminine and neuter plural pliante)

1. folding

Declension

English

Etymology

From Middle English softe, from Old English s?fte, alteration of earlier s?fte (“soft”), from Proto-West Germanic *samft? (“level, even, smooth, soft, gentle”) (compare *s?miz (“agreeable, fitting”)), from Proto-Indo-European *semptio-, *semtio-, from *sem- (“one, whole”). Cognate with West Frisian sêft (“gentle; soft”), Dutch zacht (“soft”), German Low German sacht (“soft”), German sanft (“soft, yielding”), Old Norse sœmr (“agreeable, fitting”), samr (“same”). More at seem, same.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: s?ft, IPA^(key): /s?ft/
  • (Conservative RP) IPA^(key): /s??ft/
• (General American) enPR: sôft, IPA^(key): /s?ft/
• (cot–caught merger, Canada) IPA^(key): /s?ft/, enPR: s?ft
• Rhymes: -?ft

Adjective

soft (comparative softer, superlative softest)

1. Easily giving way under pressure.

2. (of cloth or similar material) Smooth and flexible; not rough, rugged, or harsh.
3. (of a sound) Quiet.
4. Gentle.

   There was a soft breeze blowing.

   • c. 1533, William Tyndale, An exposicion upon of Mathew

     The meek or soft shall inherit the earth.

5. Expressing gentleness or tenderness; mild; conciliatory; courteous; kind.
   • 1815, William Wordsworth, To a Highland Girl

     A face with gladness overspread, / Soft smiles, by human kindness bred.

6. Gentle in action or motion; easy.
7. Weak in character; impressible.
   • 1665, Joseph Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica

     The deceiver soon found this soft place of Adam's.

8. Requiring little or no effort; easy.
   • 1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Beach of Falesá

     Before that they had been a good deal on the move, trekking about after the white man, who was one of those rolling stones that keep going round after a soft job.

9. Not bright or intense.

10. Having a slight angle from straight.

11. (linguistics) Voiced; sonant.
    • 1954, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

      DH represents the voiced (soft) th of English these clothes.

12. (linguistics, rare) voiceless
13. (linguistics, Slavic languages) palatalized
14. (slang) Lacking strength or resolve; not tough, wimpy.

15. (of water) Low in dissolved calcium compounds.

16. (Britain, colloquial) Foolish.
    • 1621, Robert Burton, The Essential Anatomy of Melancholy

      He made soft fellows stark noddies, and such as were foolish quite mad.

17. (physics) Of a ferromagnetic material; a material that becomes essentially non-magnetic when an external magnetic field is removed, a material with a low magnetic coercivity. (compare hard)
18. (of a person) Physically or emotionally weak.
19. Incomplete, or temporary; not a full action.

20. (Britain, of a man) Effeminate.
    • 1650, Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living

      A longing after sensual pleasures is a dissolution of the spirit of a man, and makes it loose, soft, and wandering.

21. Agreeable to the senses.
22. Not harsh or offensive to the sight; not glaring or jagged; pleasing to the eye.
    • 1673, Edward Browne, A Brief Account of some Travels in Hungaria, Styria, Bulgaria, Thessaly, Austria, Serbia, Carynthia, Carniola, and Friuli

      The sun, shining upon the upper part of the clouds […] made the softest lights imaginable.

23. (photography, of light) Made up of nonparallel rays, tending to wrap around a subject and produce diffuse shadows.
24. (computing) Emulated with software; not physically real.

25. (of a drug) Not likely to cause addiction.

Synonyms

• (giving way under pressure): see Thesaurus:soft
• (of a cloth): non-abrasive, fluffy
• (gentle): gentle, light, nesh
• (of a sound): quiet
• (lacking strength or resolve): meek, mild, wimpy, nesh
• (foolish): daft, foolish, silly, stupid

Antonyms

• (giving way under pressure): hard, resistant, solid, stony
• (of a cloth): abrasive, scratchy
• (gentle): harsh, rough, strong
• (acute): hard
• (of a sound): loud
• (lacking strength or resolve): firm, strict, tough
• (of water): hard
• (foolish): sensible

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• mollify

Interjection

soft

1. (archaic) Be quiet; hold; stop; not so fast.

Adverb

soft (comparative more soft, superlative most soft)

1. (obsolete) Softly; without roughness or harshness; gently; quietly.
   • There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

Noun

soft (plural softs)

1. A soft or foolish person; an idiot.
   • 1859, George Eliot, Adam Bede Part I, Chapter 9

     It'll do you no good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own, if you've got a soft to drive you: he'll soon turn you over into the ditch.

2. (motorsports) Ellipsis of soft tyre (A tyre whose compound is softer than mediums, and harder than supersofts.)
3. (colloquial) A soft sound or part of a sound.
   • 2012, Sam McGuire, Paul Lee, The Video Editor's Guide to Soundtrack Pro (page 103)

     The expander doesn't really make the louds louder and the softs softer in one step […]

Czech

Etymology

Borrowed from English soft(ware).

Noun

soft m

1. (colloquial) software, program
   • 18 March 1999, CD-R 74min X 80min, Group cz.comp.ibmpc:

     Zajimalo by mne, zda jsou tyto CD schopna pracovat na plnou kapacitu s normalnimi vypalovackami a beznym softem nebo je na ne potreba mit extra vypalovadlo i soft?

   • 19 March 2009, Zalohovaci SW, Group cz.talk:

     Pokud t?ch dat máte víc, pak tím TARem sta?í zálohovat základ systému a zbytek ?ešit zálohovacím softem, kterej umí d?lit archiv na n?kolik pásek.

   • 2 April 2010, gsm modul / telefon, Group cz.comp.linux:

     ma nekdo nejake zkusenosti s takovym zarizenim ci softem kterym to ovladat?

Declension

Further reading

• soft in Kartotéka Novo?eského lexikálního archivu
• soft in Slovník spisovného jazyka ?eského, 1960–1971, 1989

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English soft.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?ft/

Noun

soft m (plural softs)

1. (sexuality) soft porn
2. (computing, uncountable) Software.
3. (computing, countable) A piece of software.

Adjective

soft (plural softs)

1. softcore (pornography)

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English soft.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?ft/

Adjective

soft (invariable)

1. soft (tone etc; temporary (computing))

References

Polish

Etymology

Borrowed from English soft(ware).

Noun

soft m inan

1. (colloquial) software, program